Mohammad Ishtayeh may replace Palestinian PM

Mohammad Ishtayeh, a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement, is a strong candidate for replacing Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah whose resignation was accepted by Palestine's President Mahmoud Abbas, an official source said. “The president accepted the resignation of the prime minister and designated him to head an interim government,” Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdaineh said on Sunday. He quoted some sources as saying that Mohammed Ishtayeh, a confidant of Abbas, is a strong candidate for taking the position, Alalam reported. On June 20, two weeks after taking office, Hamdallah submitted his resignation to Abbas due to a “dispute over his powers” and “outside interferences in his powers and duties.” Hamdallah is a UK-educated professor of linguistics who has been president of Al-Najah University in the occupied West Bank since 1998. Following the announcement, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, “Hamdallah’s resignation indicates that unilateral steps remain weak, are useless and do not resolve the internal Palestinian problem… The solution is not in having many governments. It is in the implementing the reconciliation agreement.”